Key focus areas:
From digital journeys to intelligent decisions – what comes after the banking app?
AI agents and the changing economics of customer acquisition, choice and loyalty
AI vs AI – fraud, synthetic identities and the new battle for trust
Programmable money and the rise of machine-initiated transactions
Building an AI-native financial institution – people, operating models, and governance
The human premium – what becomes more valuable when intelligence become abundant
Who should attend?
CEOs, country heads and chief retail, consumer and digital banking officers
Heads of deposits, payments, cards, wealth, mortgages, consumer credit and financial wellbeing
Heads of customer experience, distribution, marketing, pricing and product management
Chief data, technology, AI, innovation and transformation officers
Heads of fraud, financial crime, cybersecurity, risk, compliance and consumer protection
Central bankers, regulators and policymakers responsible for retail finance, payments, AI and digital identity
Founders and senior leaders from fintech, paytech, wealthtech, digital-bank and identity companies
Senior executives from retailers, telecommunications companies, marketplaces, super-apps and other platforms embedding financial services
People you will meet
LV Chengze
Head of Retail AI
Research and Development Center
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
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Li Meng
Professor, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Hu Jie
Professor of Practice,
Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
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Shen Yan
Deputy Director,
Institute of Digital Finance and Professor of Finance,
National School of Development, Peking University
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Agenda
AI Explosion Summit
Thursday, 25 February 2027
Registration
Welcome and Opening Keynote
After Digital Banking: Competing for Trust, Intent and Execution
Digital banking changed how customers operated their bank. AI changes who operates it. As intelligent systems move from answering questions to interpreting intent, recommending actions and increasingly executing decisions, retail banking is entering a fundamentally different phase. The competitive question is no longer simply who has the best app or digital experience, but who controls the intelligence, permissions and execution behind the customer relationship. This opening keynote will examine how that shift could redefine where power, trust and value sit in retail financial services.
- From customer-directed banking to AI-assisted and increasingly AI-executed finance
- Who controls customer intent when AI begins choosing, comparing and acting
- How delegated execution could reshape products, payments and customer relationships
- Where accountability and trust must sit when machines participate in financial decisions
Heads of Retail and Digital Banking Roundtable: What Happens When Banking Starts Thinking for the Customer?
AI introduces a new possibility into financial services: customers may no longer make every financial decision themselves.
As intelligent systems take on a greater role in recommending and acting on their behalf, this closed-door leadership roundtable brings together senior financial services leaders to examine how far institutions should go and where the boundaries should be drawn.
- How much financial decision-making will customers genuinely delegate to AI and where will they still want to remain in control?
- What happens when a customer’s AI starts negotiating with the bank’s AI on price, deposits, credit and product selection?
- If AI continuously compares providers and moves customers to the best option, what happens to loyalty, pricing power and the primary banking relationship?
- Which parts of the customer relationship must financial institutions continue to own and where will partnerships with platforms, agents and ecosystems become unavoidable?
- Who remains accountable when intelligent systems recommend, negotiate or act on a customer’s behalf and where should human judgement remain non-negotiable?
Tea/Coffee Break
When Intelligence Becomes Cheap, Where Will Financial Institutions Make Money?
AI is making analysis, personalisation and service faster and cheaper, but efficiency alone does not create growth. The question is not simply how much AI can save, but where financial institutions will create and capture value when intelligence itself becomes abundant. This session examines how AI could reshape revenue pools, customer economics and competitive advantage across retail financial services.
- If AI continuously compares rates, products and providers, what happens to customer inertia, deposit margins and pricing power?
- Which traditional financial products and services are most at risk of becoming commoditised?
- Where will financial institutions still retain defensible sources of value that competitors, platforms or AI agents cannot easily replicate?
Who Owns the Permission Layer? When AI Can See, Decide and Act?
The next struggle in retail banking will not only concern who owns the app. It will concern who can access financial context, interpret customer intent and receive permission to initiate an action. Consent-based data exchange, digital identity and agent-ready interfaces could allow banks to become trusted execution partners—or reduce them to regulated utilities behind someone else’s experience.
- Moving from account ownership to customer-controlled financial context
- Designing consent, data portability and revocation for AI-mediated services
AI vs AI: Fighting the New Scam Economy
AI is making fraud faster, cheaper and harder to detect, from deepfakes and synthetic identities to highly personalized scams. Financial institutions are fighting back with AI-powered detection and real-time intelligence, creating a new contest between machines designed to deceive and those built to defend. This session examines whether defensive AI can keep pace while protecting customers without adding unnecessary friction.
- As AI makes deception more convincing, how should liability be divided among banks, platforms, telecom companies and customers?
- How should institutions detect deepfakes, synthetic identities, and suspicious behaviour without adding customer friction?
- Could behavioural intelligence and continuous verification become more effective than traditional identity checks?
- Can institutions move from detecting fraud to predicting, interrupting and recovering funds across networks in real time?
Afternoon Break
Stop Benchmarking Banks Against Bank
Some of the most advanced customer and operating models are being built outside financial services. Airlines, retailers, digital platforms and other high-frequency businesses increasingly use AI to anticipate demand, recover from service failures, personalise decisions and coordinate complex ecosystems in real time. This session looks beyond traditional banking benchmarks to examine what financial institutions can learn from industries where intelligence is already embedded into everyday operations.
- How are leading consumer businesses using AI to anticipate needs and respond to customers in real time?
- What can banks learn about loyalty, personalised pricing, and service recovery from industries with frequent customer interactions?
- How could agent-driven servicing change the way banks manage routine interactions, exceptions and complex customer needs?
- What can financial institutions learn from businesses that orchestrate multiple partners, data sources, and services behind a seamless customer experience?
Who Runs the Bank When Agents Run the Work?
AI is moving from assisting employees to taking on increasingly complex tasks across customer service, pricing, fraud, credit, product development and operations. As intelligent agents begin to coordinate work, make recommendations and act across traditional organisational boundaries, banks will need to rethink how teams are structured, where decision-making sits and what managers are ultimately accountable for. This session examines what the operating model of a financial institution could look like when people increasingly supervise, govern and work alongside intelligent agents.
- Which decisions move from employees to agents, and who owns them when they cross organisational silos?
- What happens to traditional management layers when one employee can supervise multiple AI agents?
- Should AI agents belong to business units, technology teams or a new institutional control layer?
- What human capabilities become more valuable as execution becomes increasingly automated?
By 2030, is the Bank a Brand, an Agent or a Balance Sheet?
As AI agents increasingly sit between customers and financial providers, the role of the bank itself may begin to fragment. One institution may hold the balance sheet, another provides the product, while an intelligent platform controls the customer relationship and decides where money goes.
This closing debate challenges industry leaders to consider where the real value of a bank will sit by 2030: in the brand customers trust, the intelligent agent that acts for them, or the regulated balance sheet behind financial services delivered elsewhere.
- Which layer creates the greatest strategic power: relationship, intelligence, execution or balance sheet?
- Can a bank remain highly profitable if another platform owns the customer?
- Will customers trust bank-owned agents more than independent agents?
- What must today's retail banking CEO decide before 2030?
